Nessa sighed. "I saw you eating sugar."
Gregory shrugged, chowing down on the carrot. "Oh well. What we're you on a phone call about?" he asked curiously, seemingly in a much better mood now. Possibly also energetic from consuming who knows what.
"Why would you say I was on a phone call?"
"You're not exactly quiet. I could hear you talking through that door and then pausing, as if waiting for someone else to talk. I also saw a phone in there earlier. I didn't hear anything you said though!" The last sentence was quickly exclaimed when Gregory saw a look of wordy on Nessa's face.
"That makes sense," Nessa said softly. It was either lie to Gregory or explain to him. She readied her own breakfast and decided to see if she could just ignore the question.
"Did someone die?" Gregory asked bluntly.
Nessa snapped her neck towards him. "Why do you ask?" Her brain immediately went to Glitch talking about all the murders. There was also Jeremy.
Gregory dug through the fridge to look for more food. "You just got off a phone call and you're acting like people do when they hear some friend or distant relative died. I'm not stupid."
Nessa shook her head. "He wasn't a friend."
"Was he your—"
"Now would be a terrible time to finish that sentence. He was an irritating co-worker who thought of me as a friend. Don't make jokes like that, Gregory."
"So that's what you were in the office about?" he asked, a bit quieter now.
Nessa nodded. It was a sort of half-truth, but nothing to be done about that. They began eating bowls of yogurt with berries in silence before she decided to say something. "I figured we'd go shopping today, in case there was anything else you needed or wanted. Maybe go do something fun, like bowling."
Gregory's eyes lit up. "Can we drive down to Hurricane? I have a few pen pals there and we recently exchanged phone numbers so I can call them and tell them we're coming down!"
Glitch appeared in the seat next to Gregory with a twinkle in its eye. "If you don't drive the kid down there, I will! I am RATHER fond of Hurricane!"
Nessa barely spared Glitch a glance. On one hand, taking Glitch were it wanted to go seemed like an objectively terrible idea. On the other hand, they would end up there either way, Gregory wanted to go, and it would be best if she was in control when they went.
"Fine. It's a bit of a drive so we'll leave in an hour."
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The ride there was quiet, there had been a bit of traffic, Glitch had sat in the front the whole way there complained that the population was too large and if it was shrunk down there would be less traffic, Gregory had a puzzle book he worked on determinedly, as well as some strange gadget he tinkered with. Nessa hadn't asked about it, but had noted Glitch's interest in it.
"This is the right address, right?" Nessa asked as she glanced at the GPS and pulled into the driveway.
Gregory looked up from his puzzle book and nodded vigorously. "Yep! I wanted to meet them at the diner, but they said it was closed today," he said as bolted out of the car.
"Perfect. Ready to go meet them all them all then?" It occurred to Nessa that she hadn't bothered to ask even the bare minimum of information about Gregory's pen pals. Not even names. Hopefully they weren't some weirdo creeps. At least if anything went wrong, Glitch would probably be able to handle the situation. She mentally slapped herself for thinking that way.
Nessa shook her head violently, as if to derail the entire train of thought and walked up as Gregory repeatedly pressed the doorbell until Nessa gently pulled his hand away.
The door flew open and a very familiar fourteen year old gaped at the duo, well, technically trio since Glitch was standing there and looking very pleased. But it's not like anyone other than Nessa could see if. The aforementioned fourteen year old slammed the door shut in their faces, much to Gregory's confusion.
There was some shouting and general chaos heard within the house, which Nessa very much pretended not to notice, until Henry Emily opened the door.
Nessa grinned weakly. "Gregory wanted to meet his pen pals, said he called ahead?"
Henry gave her an odd look, causing her to realize that he definitely remembered her as well, but didn't comment on it. That much she was certainly grateful for. "He did call! The kids have been looking forward to meeting him. Why don't you two come inside?"
There was no getting out of this one. Glitch started whistling and immediately began poking around the house as Charlie walked into the dining room, which was situated close to the entrance. "Gregory! Glad to see you survived the trip." She gave Nessa a slight passive aggressive glance for a split second, which really wasn't fair, given Nessa had never even attempted to murder her. But also kind of sort of fair enough.
Elizabeth either didn't care about Nessa's presence or was simply good at pretending that she didn't care. "Come one, Gregory! Uncle Henry got us a video game console about a week ago!"
Gregory glanced at Nessa, as if to ask for permission. She nodded and he let himself get dragged off.
Henry smiled as the kids ran off happily before turning to Nessa. "By the way, Michael wanted to talk to you. I would've done it myself but he seems to understand what all is going on a bit better. Besides, I have some animatronics to work on!"
Nessa blinked. "What's going on? Okay, sure."
"He's over in the living room, I'll be in my office," Henry added before walking off.
Nessa wandered over to the living room, where Michael was sitting on the ground and sketching various animatronics. A variation of Freddy, one of Chica, one of Bonnie, a wolf, and an alligator. No point in beating around the bush. "Henry said you wanted to talk to me?"
Michael jumped slightly as his concentration was broken and he looked up. "Oh, right. I've been meaning to talk to you for a while, almost two years. You were just impossible to track down."
Glitch glanced up from inspecting Michael's project. "Quite fun being hard to track down."
Nessa shrugged. "It was a weird time. What did you want to say?"
Michael held up his sketches. "Uncle Henry is opening a new location in a couple days. We wondering if you'd like a job there."
Nessa raised an eyebrow, genuinely startled. Even Glitch looked surprised. "A job?" she said flatly, to temporarily stunned to ask a proper question.
Michael nodded. "Head of security. Start in a couple days. I know it's rather soon, but since you switched jobs you've been impossible to find. Dumb luck that you happened to adopt my siblings' pen pal."
"Yeah... an odd coincidence," she muttered as she resisted the urge to glance at Glitch. Definitely not a coincidence. "Seems like an odd request though, I don't exactly have experience with security."
Michael shrugged. "You have the guts to stand William," he said with a smirk.
Nessa frowned. "I'm not sure I could do that again. Besides, the commute would suck."
"Actually, it's not far from where the rest stop you used to work at is. From the address Gregory gave us, it's closer to your house."
Glitch examined the sketches from a handstand. "If you pay CAREFUL attention, you can tell we're in another if YOU don't then I WILL situation! Your current job will be easy to quit."
Nessa sighed. "Fine, I suppose I'll take the job."
Michael looked pleased and scribbled in his notebook for a second before ripping out a page and handing it to her. "Here, this should be all the information you need."
